Power devices made with silicon carbide (SiC) are expected to show great advantages as compared to those on silicon for high speed, high power and/or high temperature applications due to the high critical field and wide band gap of SiC. For devices capable of blocking high voltages, such as voltages in excess of about 5 kV, it may be desirable to have bipolar operation to reduce the drift layer resistance via conductivity modulation resulting from injected minority carriers. However, one technical challenge for bipolar devices in silicon carbide is forward voltage degradation over time, possibly due to the presence of Basal Plane Dislocations (BPD) in single crystals of silicon carbide. Thus, unipolar devices such as SiC Schottky diodes and MOSFETs are typically used for high power applications, e.g., up to 10kV or more.
SiC DMOSFET devices with a 10 kV blocking capability have been fabricated with a specific on-resistance of about 100 mΩ×cm2. DMOSFET devices may exhibit very fast switching speeds of, for example, less than 100 ns, due to their majority carrier nature. However, as the desired blocking voltage of devices increases, for example up to 15 kV or more, the on-resistance of a MOSFET device may increase substantially, due to the corresponding increase in the drift layer thickness. This problem may be exacerbated at high temperatures due to bulk mobility reduction, which may result in excessive power dissipation.
With the progress of SiC crystal material growth, several approaches have been developed to mitigate BPD related problems. See, e.g., B. Hull, M. Das, J. Sumakeris, J. Richmond, and S. Krishinaswami, “Drift-Free 10-kV, 20-A 4H-SiC PiN Diodes”, Journal of Electrical Materials, Vol. 34, No. 4, 2005, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. These developments may enhance the development and/or potential applications of SiC bipolar devices such as thyristors, GTOs, etc. Even though thyristors and/or GTOs may offer low forward voltage drops, they may require bulky commutating circuits for the gate drive and protections. Accordingly, it may be desirable for a SiC bipolar device to have gate turn-off capability. Due to their superior on-state characteristics, reasonable switching speed, and/or excellent safe-operation-area (SOA), 4H-SiC insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) are becoming more suitable for power switching applications.
These devices are used in power modules, which operate to dynamically control large amounts of power through switching for motors, inverters, generators, and the like. There is a continuing need for power modules that are smaller and less expensive to manufacture while at the same time being capable of controlling larger loads.